


Entitled

by Nope



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sapphire and Steel are assigned to a Time breakout in a library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entitled

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Andraste

 

 

You're looking at the screen. It's blank. You don't know what to write. This is usual. You're not really worried. You always think of something in the end. You're surrounded by inspiration, all neatly bound up between bright, inviting covers. A bit of Byron, a drop of Dickens, a soupcon of Shakespeare. And the people, of course, they're always good -- you can see the current six without even leaving your seat, arrayed on the small security monitors. The red head in glasses, tiny headphones half-hidden in her ears, tapping her pen against her lip. The brunette with the French-Italian accent who'd said good day and lingered in the reference section for a bit and who was now furtively browsing the trashy romance paperbacks. The Asian man in the silver tie, flipping efficiently through the card file. The grey haired black woman, copying sections of technical manuals out into her little green notebook. The blonde in the blue dress, trailing her hand against the six-eighties. The curly haired student in the rock group top, heading your way. You turn to meet him.

"Hey," he says. "Uh. I, like, need help? Or something?"

You smile. "This is the help desk. What can I do for you?"

"I, um, need a book? On, like, politics? And stuff?" His head bobs gentle agreement as he talks. "Government and politics."

You don't roll your eyes. You keep smiling and you say, "What's your assignment?"

"My--? Oh! Ah, I gotta--" He swings his bag off his shoulder, pulls out a crumpled sheet of paper and attempts to smooth it out. He waves it at you.

It's typical first year work. A research paper on the various branches of the government. You don't even have to look it up.

"Okay, you want the section on systems of governments and states. That's three-two-one." You write it down on a post-it note, easy flicks of your trusted Sheaffer pen. "I recommend Strunk and Wagner, and Beckett, three-two-one point four five ess-tee-are and bee-eee-cee respectively." You stick the post-it to the assignment sheet and then point. "Go straight over there, fourth stack on the right; they have the numbers printed at each end and on the shelves, so you can just follow them, okay?"

"Right over there?"

"Right over there. You can see it says three-hundred on the side, there?"

"Oh! Yeah! Right, thanks!" Clutching at his paper, the student hurries off, veering wildly before you cough and motion and he gets it and goes the right way. It's all so routine.

Autonomic. Like breathing.

Your screen's still blank. You think about government and politics. You think about Presidents and Kings, good ones and bad ones, dead ones and mad ones. The world gets dimmer, smaller. The cursor blinks on the screen. You think about branches of government and branches of trees and branches of government on the branches of trees, like crows or ravens or the Summer King crucified, delirious and divine. The screen clock flashes nine-fourteen. You think of things in balance and things unbalanced, of unstable equilibrium, of Kingdoms balanced on a knife-edge, the barest wobble away from the plunge into war. You can hear the murmurs of the court, the distant thunderous hoof-beats of a charging army. The wall clock clicks over eleven-oh-six. The screen fills the world. You think about Henry I of England defeating his older brother Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, at the Battle of Tinchebrai. You think about Henry IV of Germany and Rome succumbing, defeated by his son, Henry V. You think about Lear. You think about Hamlet. Families betrayed; families at war; families in madness. Delirious and divine, rising around you, orchestral, choral, chorus, crescendo, your hands raised, poised over the keyboard, your mind raised, holy, the story raised, preparing to be born, the

"I was wondering if you could help me."

silence.

You look up. It's the blonde woman from before, you think. Blonde in blue. Of course it's the same woman. Who else could it be? You think: this is the help desk. She smiles, just a little. In response, perhaps. Maybe your face changes with the words. Like having a telephone voice. A help desk face. This is the help desk.

You say. "What's your assignment?"

"The library," she says, something in her voice, almost amusement. "I'm Sapphire."

She holds out her hand. You take it and tell her your name and she smiles and taps the plate.

"Just like it says on the desk," she says. She's still holding your hand, as if she's testing your grip. Hers is firm but gentle, her fingers warm to the touch.

"Just like it says on the desk," you agree. "Can I help you?"

Her eyes are very, very blue. She says, "Perhaps," and finally lets go, turning a little to look around at the stacks. "Are you the only one working tonight?"

"That's right," you say. "Were you looking for one of the others? You've just missed Jill, I'm afraid; she always sneaks out early on... days like today."

Tuesday, says the computer. Thursday, says the stamp.

"I can take a message," you say.

"No," she says. "No message."

"What are you looking for?" you ask.

"My colleague," she says, smiling faintly. Not a student then, not even a mature one. "He's over there."

You look automatically. He is: a stiff man in an outdated suit, glaring at the books.

"Oh," you say.

"Yes," she says. "Please excuse me for a moment."

She actually seems to be waiting for permission, so you nod and she smiles again, easily, somewhere between affection and amusement, and turns away. You watch her cross the room, fingers ghosting across the backs of chairs and the tops of table, passing the hippie looking girl with the headphones and the black woman in the red leather jacket, crossing the room to him. She smiles, he doesn't, and there's something familiar in their actions, comfortable and well worn. They've done this a lot, you can tell. They way they move. Communication gone unsaid, body language talk, inaudible but real.

'Colleague', she said. 'My colleague.'

He's softer now, you think, and then: it's not so much that he softens in her presence as he becomes a different form of solid, a construct of their mutual strength rather than his own. 'A construct of their mutual strength.' Yes, you like that. You make a note of it in your commonplace book with your antique pen.

"Yes, but which one?" he says, a note of annoyance, impatience, something.

"Perhaps all of them," she says.

"Which one, Sapphire?"

"Perhaps none," she says, unruffled. "I don't know yet."

"And what about these?" A jerk of his head at the browsers. The longhaired foreign woman in the swirling green dress. The thin Asian man with the sharp beard.

"I don't know."

"Do we know anything?" It sounds like it should come with a sneer attached and yet it seems to be a genuine question.

She smiles. "It's a library."

"Yes," he says. "Books. Lots of... Books."

He sees you watching and she reacts too, turns to look at you. You look at the screen. Flash flash flash goes the cursor. You can feel them both watching you. You have a weird picture in your head, the three of you at some roadside café somewhere, France probably, sipping your coffees and eating your croissants, spies pretending to be tourists, pretending to watch the crowds, the laughing girl, the sombre man, watching each other carefully. She's wearing a beret and a smile, he a dark tie and a darker glare. Maybe he's smoking a cigarette. Yes, a cigarette, something cheap, Russian maybe; you can smell it, blue and acrid. Your coffee is rich, dark, almost scalding on your tongue. You glance up and

"He doesn't smoke," Sapphire says.

"What are you?" Her companion asks.

You're confused. You tell him you're a librarian. You tell him you work the help desk. Enquiries and research, that sort of thing.

"Getting things out of books," he says, and looks at her.

"Human," she says. "Contemporary." She gives your age to the day and you tell her it's a good guess and she smiles and nods slightly and says, "Yes."

"Are you researchers?" you ask. They give you looks of polite incomprehension. You clarify. "Are you looking for something?"

"The trigger," he says.

"Or triggers," she says.

"A pressure point?" he asks her.

"Maybe," she says. "You have lots of old books here." It takes you a moment to realise she is talking to you again. "And this is a very old building."

"Parts of it are. The west wing is new, and they've refurbished a lot of the rest, but the columns are original, the archways and such." You nod up at the dome above you. "The frame up there is the original, restored. Two hundred and fifty years old. The glass is replaced, though, it broke in those horrible October winds we had back in, lets see, nineteen-eighty-something."

He looks at her sharply. She shakes her head.

"This is my friend, Steel," she says.

"Your colleague."

"That's right."

"Is this all your books?" Steel asks abruptly and, not waiting for an answer, "Are there more books? A -- Basement or a stock room? Other libraries."

You nod. "There's the Manners collection next door, lots of Natural History stuff, and the university library is connected through the car park. We have unsorted stuff downstairs, new collections, donations, deliveries, everything like that, but I'm not allowed to let you go through that until it's been catalogued, unless you have a permit from the council or the head librarian, or a letter from the Dean."

"The Dean?" Steel looks at Sapphire.

"The head of a faculty, school, or administrative division in a university or college," she supplies. "The official in charge of undergraduate students."

"Ah," he says. "Where is this Dean?"

"I don't know. He's probably gone home, I mean, it's quite late. Lectures finish at five." You look at the wall clock. It's six thirty-five. You look at your watch. It's seven fifteen. You look at the computer. It's eight twenty-three. You look at the man. His eyes are grey. Her eyes are ... green, perhaps. No, blue again. There's a thrumming noise. Electrics, you think. The electricity is on the blink again.

"It's here," she says. "Somewhere."

"Can you pinpoint it?"

"No. It's like looking for the pole. We're too close, everything gets confused."

"But these are all the books?" he asks her, and then you, intent, hard. "These are all the books."

"Well, yes," you say. "I mean, we have microfiche copies of newspapers and periodicals and things, and there's the Internet, of course. And the university servers -- we've got our own sort of Project Gutenberg going. We pay the students, just a small amount, to scan things, papers and the like. Old books. They're all on the machine, you can search them and everything, and we can print them out for you, although that will cost a bit. eBooks, they call them. It's all very state of the art. It's--"

You think you're talking too much so you stop. It doesn't seem to matter. Steel's gone thoughtful, moved closer to Sapphire.

"State of the art," he says. "Old columns. Refurbished buildings. New extensions. Original frames. Students. Professors."

The black woman in the red smartcoat, ghost videos dancing in her clothes while she types on her Blackberry with her plastic stylus.

"The very old and the very new?" Sapphire asks.

Steel nods.

"All mixed up together. But it can't be," she says. "Steel, it can't be. Look at the size of this place. There would be more damage."

"We're here at the beginning," he says. "We've got here in -- We've arrived early."

She shakes her head. "No. It's here. It's been here for a while. There's pressure, yes. You can feel it." He nods. "It's not enough though. It's worn thin, but it's not inside, not yet."

You have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and you say so.

"How many books would you say are on this?" Steel asks. When he touches the screen, colours bend and flare. Moiré patterns. Your fingers twitch to hit the degauss. "A hundred? A thousand? More?"

You nod.

"Old books? New books? Tell me!"

"Old books. First editions. Folio texts. But new stuff too, all the students' papers and the professors' work, and exclusive eBooks."

"Electronic books," he says, disgust in his voice.

"They have to advance," she says.

"Do they?" It's clearly rhetorical. It expects a no. She says "yes" anyway and his lips curl, an almost smile. An affectionate look. They're used to each other's foibles.

"Look," you say. "Is there something wrong? Are you-- Are you police? If there's been some plagiarism or something. Fraud. I don't know, if people are giving us stolen books. Look, if there's something-- What's going on?"

Steel doesn't answer. He's looking around, intently. He sees a public terminal across the room and goes, striding away without as much as a by-your-leave.

Sapphire smiles at you, part apology, part amusement. "He's a shade too serious but you'll get used to him."

You're not sure you want to and you say so and she laughs, bright and easy, and you feel better. She goes to join him and you watch. They're investigators, you got that much. Police. Special ops. Hell, maybe they really are spies. He's typing, hitting the keys to hard. She leans against him, looking over the shoulder her hand is resting in. Total invasion of personal space. Tactile. Touching. Close enough to kiss.

"You can't trust them," says the foreign woman. Her hair is pinned up under a small cap. Her lips are red, her tongue sharp when it wets them. "You can't trust her."

"Why not?" you ask, as if this was somehow a reasonable conversation. Like the world was a noir novel.

I can write this, you think. I can write this story.

"Look at them," says the woman, French, Italian, French-Italian. Not blurry or changing. Spectrum living. All at once. "Do you think they're real? What sort of names are those? 'Sapphire'. 'Steel'. Composites. Made up things."

You are looking at them. You're looking at the way she smiles at him. You're looking at the deference in his shoulders. The care in his eyes. You're looking at the space between them, the lack of it, the way she hangs off him. The way she fits. The way her hands move on him. You're filling in the gestures. Her, leaning almost all the way in. Him, closing the distance. Sapphire and Steel, both hard in their own ways, both just flexible enough for this, flexible enough to set together, hard enough to wear away at each others edges until it's simple and perfect and smooth. They'd be quiet, you think, you know. They'd barely make a noise, not voluntarily. They'd gasp a little against each other's skin. He'd bite off a moan. She'd strangle a whimper. Him, solid, her, flowing. Yin and yang, inside each other completely and complete.

The snap sounds just like bone breaking.

You jerk back in your seat, stomach roiling, thinking of trees again, except this time the prince isn't nailed to the branches, he's falling from, arms and legs breaking like twigs on impact. You can smell sap and raised dirt, ears waiting for the inevitable cry, but your eyes are more insistent and slowly you realise the noise was Steel, hitting the keys so hard he broke the keyboard. You breathe until the queasiness goes away, safe in your seat behind the help desk.

"It's probably people's frustration at these damned machines that let it in," Steel snaps.

You can see Sapphire's trying not to laugh. "It's not your area of expertise."

"I don't need help," he says.

"Of course not," she says. "Still, we have specialists for a reason."

"You'll have to call technical support," you say, not meaning to, and they both look at you. The hippie girl is watching, head bobbing, over-sized headphones covering her ears. The Asian man looks around, samurai still, holding a card like a sword. "I mean, I will. Call."

They're still looking at you, so you turn away. The blank screen glares, waiting input. You reach over your keyboard for the phone, press nine for an outside line. A poet and you know it. The phone clicks.

"--at the tone," it says, "it will be-- at the tone, it will be-- at the tone, it will be--"

Five thirty says the computer. Eight seventeen says the wall clock. Six twenty three says your watch. November says the newspaper headline. December says the stamp. You can hear the Beatles playing, quiet and tinny. Hippie girl bouncing time. Black woman scratch-tapping on her Treo. Electronics on the phone. And:

"--at the tone, it will be-- at the tome, it will be-- at the tome--"

You slam it down. Hard. Too hard. They're watching. Everybody is watching. Everything is.

"You'll have to call technical support," you repeat, weakly.

"Nonsense!" A cheery voice, smooth, cultured, educated. A soft, educated man steps around into view, though you couldn't tell from where. He's wearing a light grey suit, well cut, and a shiny silver waistcoat, tasteful and just a little bit fun as well. A little effete, but well carried. He likes the younger women, you think, and they like him. Just enough paternal, just enough predator. "I'm good with machines. That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

"Silver." A touch of the long-suffering martyr there.

"Hello, Steel." Silver's easy smile broadens when it's turned on Sapphire. He lifts her hand to his mouth. "And my dear Sapphire." A pressed kiss, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, matched in hers, sharing secrets in their smiles. "Always a pleasure."

Her voice is warm, welcoming. "Hello, Silver."

Steel grabs Silver's arm, pulls him, half away from her, half towards the broken terminal. "There!"

"You really must learn to be more careful," Silver says primly, examining the keyboard. He smiles at Sapphire. "Some things require a delicate touch."

"Make it talk," Steel says and, when Silver doesn't immediately jump to it, "you're good with devices, with machines. You know about communication. Make it talk!"

"Steel," Sapphire says, but subsides when he looks at her.

Silver examines the keyboard, unperturbed, and then touches the screen. It lights up under his fingers, rainbows bending. "It's a terminal."

"I know what it is," Steel says. "Make it... Make it go!"

"My dear fellow," Silver says. "It's not an automobile. It's more like a sidecar. A sidecar whose wheels you've knocked off." Steel looks blank. Silver says, "This is just a terminal. It's an extension of the main computer, not the computer itself."  
"You can fix it," Steel says. "That's what you're for, Silver."

"I can, yes," Silver says, "but it's not what you need." He looks behind the terminal, crouching down to look under the table, moving to follow the wall. "What you need is, ah, excuse me my dear--"

Sapphire smiles, steps back, lets him pass, his head brushing against her skirts. Accidentally. Deliberately. A bit of both, perhaps. You can't tell. Casual. Flirting. Casually flirting. Steel radiating impatience, making you think of a drill sergeant, making you expect him to snap orders, to get them to fall in line, stand to attention, shoulders back, chest out, stomach in. Silver meanders happily across the floor and you're so busy watching him you don't realise where he's going until he pushes up the entrance flap and steps right into your space. You're so shocked at the casual arrogance of the invasion that it takes you a moment to realise he is saying your name.

"What?" You manage. "I mean, you can't just--!"

"I just need to get to the computer there," he says. "It won't take a jiffy."

"You can wait out here," Sapphire says, encouragingly, like she knows what's best. Like this is fine. Like people invade other people's, people's, their spaces, their, their sanctuaries, all the time.

The cursor on the screen blinks at you urgently. Your fingertips itch for the feel of the keys. Silver is looking at you with polite confusion. You get out of your seat and let him take your place. Your stomach rebels again. You stumble out to stand between Sapphire and Steel and make yourself breathe. A breath in. A breath out. You know how to do this. It's routine. It's autonomic. You clutch your Shaeffer pen like a talisman and you make yourself breathe.

Silver is doing something peculiar to your keyboard with what looks like a pen light. Maybe a sonic screwdriver. Oh god.

"You're not supposed to do that!"

"That's what Silver does," Sapphire says, gently.

"What is this?" You ask. "What's going on?"

All the clocks are wrong. Why are the clocks wrong? What day is it? Why can't you remember? You feel like it should be special. A special day. You look wildly around the room. The girl with the flared dungarees, the CND badge, and the tie-dye T-shirt. The Asian man in the razor sharp suit and thin beard and original, authentic Ray-Bans. The curly haired politician. The black woman recording shelves on her artificial eyes.

"What are you people?!"

"Sapphire, Silver and Steel," Silver says, politely. When he touches the keyboard, the screen fills with words, half-familiar, half not quite seen.

"Those aren't names," you say.

"What are you?" Silver asks, genuinely curious.

Steel snorts, edging him aside, intent on the screen.

"I'm a--" You can't think of the words. You can never think of the words. There isn't enough time. "A. I'm a librarian. I'm-- I work the help desk. I help!"

"Then help us," says Steel. "Stop getting in the way."

"Who are you?" you ask, helplessly, knuckles white around your pen, clip pressing, sharp, into your skin. "Everything's wrong. You're not supposed to do that."

"There is a corridor," Sapphire begins.

"Don't," Steel says. She looks at him. "They never understand." She looks at him some more. He doesn't roll his eyes, but it feels close, just under the surface. One paragraph over.

"There is a corridor," Sapphire says, "and the corridor is Time."

You nod like this makes sense to you. It sort of does. You've read things. H. G. Wells. Jules Verne. The Time Traveller's Wife. Those Doctor Who novels you used to sneak during your breaks because you weren't really into that geeky sort of stuff, honest. Unless Doctor Who is cool again.

Sapphire's saying, "It surrounds all things and it passes through all things. The corridor is strong, it has to be, but in some places, it's weakened, like fabric, worn thin. And when there is pressure put upon the fabric, Time can break in. It can change things. It takes things. People. Places. The entire world if it could."

"Pressure," you say.

"Pressure," she agrees.

"Like... old things and new things together. That's bad, somehow." She nods, but you're not done. "But that happens everywhere. It happens all the time. Like... Like London! All those new buildings, next to places like St. Paul's and Big Ben. Or when they build skyscrapers, and they use quarried stone. That's been there for years, for centuries. Old material, new construction."

She smiles at you and looks at Steel. "That's what I said."

"It's in the computer," says Steel. "The trigger."

"The trigger?" You ask.

"The last straw," Sapphire says. "Imagine if you started taking bricks from this building, one or two at a time. The first few wouldn't matter. You'd still have the supporting walls, the cross beams. But if you take too many, it all comes crashing down."

"Like Jenga," you say.

She looks blank but Silver turns to you with a wide smile. "That's right! Do you play? I do enjoy a nice game of--"

"Silver," says Steel, cold and hard.

He flashes you an apologetic look and turns back. Sapphire smiles indulgently at them both.

"All work and no play," says Silver quietly. So very relaxed about it all. Laughter in his voice. Soft, actual laughter from Sapphire. An annoyed look from Steel, but not too annoyed. Like this is expected. Not the same as his familiarity with Sapphire, but still, familiar. Familial.

Strange family.

"I'll know it when I say it," Steel says sharply, though in answer to what you have no idea.

Silver makes a little move of his shoulder that might be a shrug. Sapphire suddenly smiles, deep. You're almost sure she's about to laugh. Silver and Sapphire exchange a lingering look. She ducks her head a little, smiles warmly at him. His smile gets wider, almost a smirk. They're flirting. Silent again. All body language. What sort of people talk in silence? Are they even people at all? You don't think about that. You put it out of your mind. Watch the flirting. It's sweet. Innocent. A little romance. Co-workers, trying to hide the beginnings of a relationship from their boss. Okay, it's not that, you can see it's not that, but it's cute. It is. Sapphire and Steel. Evocative names. Book names. Character names.

You squeeze the pen so tight the clip cuts your hand.

You gasp a little, blood pearling and Sapphire's eyes go right to you and you take a step backwards, automatically. Suddenly it's not cute anymore. It's underhanded, almost sinister. Her eyes are blue, bright, unnatural blue. Everything about her is unnatural, her grace, her poise, her beauty. You take another step back, bump a desk, look around. Cyberwoman. Samurai Yakuza. Hippie protester. Sapphire. Silver. Steel. They're all just words. None of this feels real.

"What are you?" you ask again. "What are you, really?"

"Sapphire," says Steel, warning in his voice.

You can see the screen past him. It's blank again. It's waiting for you. You can feel the books around, just full of things you can use. You can feel the pen against your skin. Under your skin. The body is his book. Ink for blood -- no, you meant blood for ink. Something whispering inside you and out. She's looking at your pen. Your lucky pen. The one you do your real work with, even when you're doing it at the computer. Mightier than the sword. You can hear a whispering, but it's not words, it's the books. The books are all moving.

"Why plagiarism?" Steel asks suddenly. An overused adverb. But it is. Sudden. "That's what you said. That's what you thought we were looking for. 'If there's been some plagiarism or something. Fraud.' Why would a librarian be worried about fraud?"

This time it's Sapphire who says "Steel" as a warning. You slide away from him, closer to the stacks. The books are angry. Not at you, though. You take care of them. You extend them, renew them, make them grow and change and intermingle.

Silver says "perhaps if I--" and he raises that flashlight thing.

You yelp. You can't help yourself. In your head, it's weapon. He's a smiling assassin, a genial cutthroat, dashing, debonair, dangerous, delirious, divine. Everything's messed up. Plot threads entangled.

"You're not real," you say. "You're nothing --" The words come out before you can stop them: "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

That humming again. Too late, too late. The books attack, like buzzards. Steel pushes Silver's arm down, places himself in front, solid, heavy, unmovable armour. Pages explode into the air and he lifts his hands to meet them, except they wheel, turn, wrap themselves around Sapphire, and are gone before you've really comprehended they were moving. Just the blur of words. The rush. The wind. Everything broken into parts. Moving. Flying. Something crashes into the stacks. Books flying. Falling. Shelves falling.

The others are just standing there. Not Silver and Steel, the other others. No reaction. Puppets with their strings cut, you think and then, no, no, react, scream, do something!

The hippie screams. The politician straightens his jacket. The robot woman's lenses widen. The Yakuza pulls out his gun. Or is it a sword. You can't concentrate.

"Silver," says Steel.

"But Sapphire--"

"Silver!" says Steel, pushing him back at the computer one handed, flipping open the help desk gate with the other. "Stay there!"

Stay safe, you hear, I'll protect you.

Who protects me?

Steel lifts the stacks without apparent effort. Alien strength. Or maybe they just don't weigh anything now. Maybe nothing does. There are no hands on the wall clock. You're not wearing a watch. Were you ever? There's nothing under the stacks. Just paper. Just words. Just pages of a thousand books, all mixed together. And it's better like that, you think. I made it better.

"Where is she?" Silver asks.

"Time," Steel says, glaring at you. "Time took her. But you can bring her back."

You think he's talking to Silver. You try to think he's talking to Silver.

"The computer," Steel says. "There's nothing new on it."

"Of course there is," you say. "The-- I-- Th-There's the logs of--"

"I'm not talking about who takes what in or out," he says. "Silver?"

"Well, yes," Silver says. "I checked it all quite thoroughly. It's all reproductions of old things, I'm afraid." He smiles kindly at you. "There's nothing new in there."

"That's not true," you say. "That's not--"

"What are you?" Steel asks. He's looking around the desk, going through your stuff, just pawing through it, like you weren't right there. "Come on! A librarian who cares about stolen books, yes, but plagiarism?"

He finds your commonplace book. You've yelled, "That's mine!" before you knew you were going to. And it is. It is! Private! Until you're ready!

"You're not supposed to do that," you say. "You're not supposed to read--"

"Books are for reading," Steel says. "This is a library, isn't it? That's what you do in libraries. You read books other people have written."

Blood drips down your hand, down your pen, falls. Strikes paper. Strikes books. Spreads.

"Collage. Sampling. That's what you do, isn't it? A--" He looks at Silver.

"A commonplace book," Silver says, the way Sapphire would have. There for him. "A place to keep things that interested you, or that you liked, or that you'd found out. It's quite common. Like a scratch file on a computer. A sort of jotting pad, really. They can be quite useful."

"A book for bits of other books," Steel says, all dark triumph and barely repressed anger. "You took little pieces and put them all together, didn't you? 'A construct of their mutual strength.'"

"Shut up!"

"You're not a librarian! That's just a job. That's not the real you. What are you?"

"I told you, I'm-- I help--"

"What are you?"

"I help!"

"What are you?!"

"I'm a writer!" you scream. "A writer!"

"A writer," he says, and slams your book down on the desk.

"I helped," you sob. You don't mean to, but you do. Weak. "I helped. I made them new again. It's like-- It's like language."

"Language," he says, coming towards you, and you back up until there's nowhere to go and he keeps coming.

"We all use the same words," you tell him. "Everything is built out of those words. The new out of the old, the old out of the new. I didn't do anything wrong. I just tell stories."

"Other people's stories," Steel says. "Recycled. Re-cut." Silver is looking at you from your space, from your desk, looking at you with so much sadness, so much pity. "You want so much to be real. What was that you said -- we're just a bunch of cards?"

"Alice in Wonderland," says Silver quietly.

"That's what you do. Shuffling stories like cards." You try to move but he grabs you. Fingers like ice. Grip like. Well. Steel pushes you down. "You want to be writer?"

"I am a writer," you insist. "I am!"

"Then write," he says. "Time used your stories to take Sapphire away, but it's limited by them. It's almost broken through, but it hasn't yet, and until it does, it's stuck by its own rules. Do you understand?"

You shake your head frantically and yell when he squeezes.

"Listen very carefully," he says. "It can only use the stories you tell. It has to use them. So you have to tell a story. Something original this time."

You shake your head again, struck mute.

"Tell a story about a woman named Sapphire," Steel says and turns, and Silver lifts his head, startled and comes over. Steel grips his arm. "And us, being here. You can do that, can't you? It's just real life. You're good at reusing things."

"I don't want to question you," Silver says, "but do you think this is quite the right--"

"Sapphire," says Steel. "Here in the library."

"This isn't me," you say. "It isn't me. I don't know what's going on, but it isn't me. I'm a writer. A real one. I am!"

"Then what does it matter?" Steel says. "If it's not you, you can just go ahead and do it. Nothing will happen. You're a writer."

"I am," you insist.

"Write from life," he says. "Sapphire, Silver and Steel, in the library. You remember her. Her hair, blonde, waves. Her clothes, blue like her name." His voice has gone soft, tender, cajoling. "Remember how she was, here, with me. With us."

"It's not me," you whisper.

"Remember," he says, hushed and reverent.

And you do: her easy smile, the music of her laugh, her hands touching, feeling everything, the sharp intelligence of her eyes. You remember the sound of her voice, the shape of her face, the curves of her body. You remember the way she fits Steel's spaces, and Silver's, the way they fit each other. Sapphire and Silver and Steel, here in the library. You can just picture her trailing her fingers against Steel's back. Picture her leaning into Silver, all coy, indulgent smiles. Touching each other. Leaning on a shoulder. Pressed against a side.

"There," Silver breathes.

It's not me, you think, but once you've started, you can't stop.

"Sapphire," says Steel, and you say it too, and Silver, all of you, and there she is. Like you breathed her into the world. Like you created her with your word, and you did, you did.

This is what writing is. This is what magic is.

"Sapphire," says Silver.

But once you've started, you can't stop. She's not just there. They're all there. Pressed. Tight. In all combinations. You can see it. You can smell it, hear it, and taste it. You can feel it. His hardness. Her softness. His playfulness. Three's not a crowd for them, no, not for them. Not for them. Them, together. Them, perfect. Them, sandwiched together, touching together, moving together, being together, loving together. Steel kissing Silver over her shoulder while she smiles encouragement. His spend sliding warmly down her soft milky thighs...

They're looking at you, flushed but there.

"Oh," you say.

"Yes," she says.

"I'm quite flattered, really," Silver begins. Steel glares at him. "Uh. Well, yes."

"I didn't," you say, but then you don't know what you didn't, because you did, oh, you so did. Even if just for a moment. You slide down the wall to the ground, you're shaking, and you know. You know what you are. What you really are.

"Time will keep pressing," Sapphire tells you, softly, softly.

"It will keep attacking until it gets in," Silver says.

"But you can stop that," Steel says. "You're the trigger."

"Your need," says Silver.

"Your desire," says Sapphire. "And your frustration. Your strengths and your weakness."

"Your words," Steel says. "Using their words. Breaking down barriers. That's how it gets in."

"It just keeps hammering away," says Silver. "Like a machine."

"Like fingers tapping on a keyboard," Steel says. "Time will keep trying to get in. Unless it's given something."

"I don't know what to do," you tell them truthfully.

"Use your own words," Sapphire says, kneeling beside you. She strokes your hair, so soft, so loving, so forgiving. Perfect. "Save the world." She helps you to your feet. They all do. They're there, around you, close, comforting. "Take away the trigger."

You walk together, slowly, past the curly haired student, past the redhead with the headphones, past the Asian man by the card-file, the French-Italian woman by the romances, the black woman by the manuals, to the help desk. The screen is blank. The keyboard is warm. You know how to do this.

"Take away the trigger," Sapphire says, oh, so soft. "You just have to write it."

"You know how," Silver says and Steel too, gently, tucking your lucky pen into your pocket. "Just write."

You can barely see them any more. The world surround, fading out, fading into the dark. Just you, the screen, and the keyboard. Just you and the screen. Just write. Just write. Yes. You know how do that. You do. Writing is everything. It's simple. It's easy. You don't even have to think. Autonomic. Like breathing.

"Write," they say, and they're gone, gone, gone. Just a whisper, like a kiss. A fleeting kiss goodbye.

You're looking at the screen. You realise the story has had you all along.

 


End file.
